Why You Shouldn’t DIY Your Business’s Website

Oct 24, 2018

We understand that it takes a lot of work, time, and money to build a website from the ground up, especially if you’re just not happy with your business’s website right now. It can be frustrating to watch your site do nothing but collect bot traffic and generate no new sales or leads. You may even consider taking matters in to your own hands by doing it yourself (DIY) to get a new website.

Hold on though! We may have already talked about the difference between professional and DIY website development, and the article is still worth a read. However, we are firm when we say that DIY web development is not a project we recommend you doing. So, here they are: our top reasons you need to stop looking at templates on other web building sites and start considering why you shouldn’t do it all by yourself in the first place.

But Before We Do, Let’s Clarify Something

Just because we don’t agree with the idea of DIY’ing a website doesn’t mean it’s not impossible. There are a few benefits to DIY your website, which you can read about here. If you have the same level of expertise that we have—i.e. over 25 years’ worth of experience building websites, managing hosting, and protecting sites from cybercrime—and you know what you’re doing, then there are good resources for DIY such as First Site Guide that can help.

However, like we said, we firmly stand on the side of professionalism over DIY any time. The downsides of DIY are too severe to deal with, plus you can avoid hours of time spent and then wasted should your DIY site go wrong.

Now that that’s out of the way, here are our reasons why DIY just isn’t worth it:

Reason 1: You Don’t Have Time

It may seem simple enough to put your website together yourself…at first. But do you know anything about the plugins needed, or what makes a good design, or how to even code a site yourself? If not, you’re looking at a lot of time spent on tinkering with your website. Meanwhile, your business—something that requires a lot of attention on your part also—needs attention too, if not more so.

If your website is forcing you to focus less on daily tasks that are helping your business run smoothly, it means you really don’t have the time required to do both—you have to make the choice between one or the other. Trying to take care of both will only expend your energy and stress you out. Wouldn’t it be easier on your mind to let someone with experience take care of your website instead?

Reason 2: Times Have Changed

Just because you read the rules and how-to guides on web development before doesn’t mean their content is helpful. It depends on who wrote the book. While there are basics that will never go out of style, such as simple design, other aspects such as coding and software are another matter entirely. We also didn’t have search engines or even social media until the early 2000s; websites existed before then, but they were a great deal less secure and more complex to code.

You don’t need to hold on to every web rule that existed back then; times have changed now, and Google has seen to it that we always look toward changing things up. That includes our own websites.

Reason 3: You Keep Asking “Where Does This Go Again?”

Don’t even try to build a website DIY style if you don’t know anything about them in the first place! You may think a single page is all that people want to visit, but it’s the content contained within it that gets people more interested in what you have to offer. If the quality of your site’s content gets ignored during the DIY process, it will show—people are smart enough to pick up on weaknesses in site design and quality, especially nowadays.

Content is not only limited to written text, either. There are images, widgets, plugins, calls to action, Google maps, product descriptions, videos, and sliders to just name a handful to consider for designing and installing (depending on what type of business you run). Again, all of this involves producing high-quality content, which means it must be helpful and capable of usage. If even one of these things isn’t usable or you keep struggling to figure out which feature goes where, consider your website doomed!

This last part relates a little to our next valid point, also…

Reason 4: If It Fails, It’s All On You

The difference between you and a website company is simple: a team of professionals working together versus one person. In a company, multiple tasks as basic as running a routine backup to complex such as designing a web page can be streamlined to those workers who have enough time to handle what the other person can’t.

When it’s DIY, you’re responsible for everything: regular maintenance of plugins and backups, marketing your website, designing for print and logos, promoting your brand…you name it, it’s all on you. If you fail at DIY in terms of any of the aforementioned tasks, it’s all on you to fix rather than giving the task to someone who knows what they’re doing, adding to the pile of work to be done that you may not have time for.

It’s already tough enough for companies like our own to fix faulty coding and links on a website; imagine doing all that yourself when you’ve got customers waiting in the meanwhile—both the offline and online kinds!

Reason 5: It’ll Cost You

You may consider going for DIY after seeing our pricing list and thinking to yourself, “I can build a website at less cost than that.” Oh man…we have some bad news for you. The truth is it will actually cost you moreto build a website and then find out it’s not built properly in the first place and needs constant tinkering than it would be to have it built from the ground up (which is what we usually do). You also need to worry about the amount of cybercrime that exists online nowadays (you can check our post on how to identify online threats if you need a refresher). A DIY website is more at risk than one that’s built by a company that knows how best to protect against would-be criminals. Why? Because they may have forgotten just how important cyber security is for their website, and they could only afford the most basic—and weakest—plugins or features to use.

The end result? Having to pay for a new website.

Reason 6: It’s Not Even Yours When You’re Done

One of the biggest benefits of hiring us as your professional website company is that even after the website is built, it’s all yours. If you’re going with DIY, you will need to pay a domain company in order to receive the tools you need to create the website. Part of that price will mean that you don’t own your website, but rather the company you’re buying your domain from will be its owner. The templates they offer may not live up to your expectations of how you want your website to look and feel either.

Here’s the kicker: should you wish not to deal with the domain company in question anymore, you’re looking at a real struggle. The domain company will fight with you tooth and nail over its ownership. The battle to regain your website will be a fierce, uphill battle that will definitely exhaust your funds and waste your time. This, to us, is the biggest reasons we side with professionalism. This kind of battle is just not worth it.

We hope you understand better why going for DIY for a website may not be the best choice for your business. If you still need a website, give us a call and let us know. If you still feel unsure about your decision, perhaps a one-on-one consultation will help? Whatever you decide, we’re more than happy to help you get on the right track of focusing on what matters most: running your business. Let us do the hard part!